NJ State Assy. passes bill requiring Cablevision to carry YES

[Richard King]

The New Jersey State Assembly passed a bill that would require Cablevision to carry YES Network content.

http://www.cabletoday.com/

I wonder if they will require that they carry it for free. This is WRONG!

[RandyAB]

I do not see how they could do this.....are they going to determine what rate they are going to do to. Gotta love the government....they can't run the government right....so they have to meddle in other things.

[Dgenx321]

Thats a joke..

[Mark Holtz]

YES NETWORK RADIO ADS MOCK CABLEVISION'S YANKS BLACKOUT (http://www.nypost.com/business/69876.htm)

YES Network wins support in Assembly (http://www.nj.com/statehouse/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1046762393312560.xml)

[Scott Greczkowski]

This IS real!

What a joke, the government is now telling Cablevision how it HAS to spend it's money.

The government has gone WAY to far on this one!

From Multichannel News
YES Wins in N.J. Assembly


Multichannel News
3/4/2003 5:13:00 PM
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By an overwhelming vote, the New Jersey Assembly voted to approve a measure that could make it illegal for Cablevision Systems Corp. to refuse to carry Leo J. Hindery Jr.’s Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network.

The state Senate must still approve the final language of the bill, which holds that cable companies that refuse to carry networks in which they have no financial stake could be found in violation of state antitrust law.

Cablevision said it continues to negotiate with YES, noting in a prepared statement that it doesn’t understand why the legislators would "waste their time on this transparent attempt by the YES Network to force all Cablevision customers, whether they want to pay for the games for not, to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the YES Network and its investors."

The measure was approved on a 47-20 vote. Five assembly members abstained.

[psycaz]

Charlie E of Dish is probably sitting in a corner babbling to himself.
He couldn't get his merger approved, but YES can get a legislature to force someone to carry their signal at the rate they want, how they want.
Calling this a joke is really being kind.

[tampa8]

I don't know if there is some law that allows the legislature to govern what cable companies carry, but this is a very dangerous action. Because cable was allowed to have a monopoly for its given coverage area there might be a condition that the legislature can do this. Very slippery slope.

[DCSholtis]

"Under the law, even the Playboy Channel would be part of basic cable," said one source in the dispute..........I love that quote...Now if only I can convince Directv to put Playboy on Total Choice Plus.....:D.......Back on topic theyve also been trashing Cablevision on YES during Mike and the MadDog for the last month or so as the season gets closer.....Last week when Mike and the MadDog did their show from MSG for the Patrick Ewing Day, YES showed alternate programming because MSG wouldnt allow the simulcast...:shrug:

[Richard King]

Thats a joke..I wish.

[Scott Greczkowski]

love that quote...Now if only I can convince Directv to put Playboy on Total Choice Plus

On Dish Network you Get Playboy for FREE in Spanish is you subscribe to one of their spanish language package.

Damn I wish I knew spanish. :D

[BobMurdoch]

Donde es ta la hooters?

apologies for the butchered spelling, I took French myself.

As a NJ resident, I have to laugh at this. The cable company is blamed for "high rates" by YES's ad. Ummmmm, where do you think that that $2 a month is going to come from? I know George ain't gonna sell it to 'em for a nickel a month.

I wouldn't worry..... This was a blatant vote grab by the legislators. This will get shot down SO fast by the courts as unconstitutional. Plus, don't expect YES this year on Cablevision as injunctions and trial dates will stretch this beyond the next 7 months at LEAST.

I was kinda hoping that Cablevision will keep fighting this. The 60% of the viewers who will never watch the channel were winning for a while (non sports fans, Mets fans who will refuse to watch a Yankee's game (I'm one of 'em), etc.). Now their rates will go up again and George wins. Until the Devils are carried on YES, I could care less about the channel.....

[PeterB]

Originally posted by Scott Greczkowski


On Dish Network you Get Playboy for FREE in Spanish is you subscribe to one of their spanish language package.

Damn I wish I knew spanish. :D


With playboy, does it really matter?

Oooooooooooooooooh ahhhhhhhh are the same in any language.

[dlsnyder]

Originally posted by Z'Loth
I wonder what dlsnyder is thinking of now.



:confused: :confused:

[ClearCom]

I'll tell you what ClearCom thinks.
Not only could it take 10 months to 2 years before it is all settled, but when the dust clears and the cable price jumps, customers will again call to get satellite instead of paying the big cable giant just to get YES.
Satellite offers more for less money, period!!
I really hope Cablevision is forced to get YES, and they raise their rates another few dollars on top of the $10 jump they just announced to get all the digital stuff.
I'm writing my new ads as you read this!!

[waydwolf]

Originally posted by ClearCom
I'll tell you what ClearCom thinks.
Not only could it take 10 months to 2 years before it is all settled, but when the dust clears and the cable price jumps, customers will again call to get satellite instead of paying the big cable giant just to get YES.
Satellite offers more for less money, period!!
I really hope Cablevision is forced to get YES, and they raise their rates another few dollars on top of the $10 jump they just announced to get all the digital stuff.
I'm writing my new ads as you read this!!

    Satellite prices are going up and will continue to do so until they are more rationally in line with cable and DBS offerings will lag because:


satellite prices have been kept artificially low
programming costs only go up not down
satellites cost far more money to loft than any system costs to upgrade
satellite offerings are less attractive against digital cable versus the usual tired old nonsense predicated on old sub-550Mhz analog systems
cable can do interactive Video on Demand, telephony and High Speed Data all on a single line carrying more HD channels than satellite can fit


    Wait a few more years and you'll see that the only place DBS has a lock is mobile video to the car/truck/SUV and those who are still extremely rural or stuck with a low end cable company. There will be more buyouts and consolidations so the days of "John Doe Cable of Walla Walla County" are numbered. Especially if the economy comes back up again. Cable can more rapidly provide the services people want than satellite and no harder than running a single line from the pole to the house. No lag bolts and waterproofing on the roof required.

    I sometimes wonder when the satellite community will honestly and without blinders look at where the cable industry is going rather than rely on the complaints largely born of yesteryear, and then see that satellite has been spinning in place and was relying on a merger and had no plan number two.

    And yes, I am this brutal on satellite precisely because I install both and satellite is where the least solid grasp of cable technology is. Ten times as many of my cable customers can grok cable as satellite customers. The dish customers merely have this emotional anger and hate thing going. They don't know why dish is superior, they've had a bad experience with their cable company and it simply is. I've studied both technologies and try as I might, I couldn't come up with one way around all the shortcomings compared to cable that would allow DBS to kill cable. Ever.

    Sort of how Mac users state their Macs are superior to Wintel, but can't rely give a good solid technical reason that cannot be refuted. Their position simply is correct and that's all there is to it. But if they were right, the American public being the legendary cheapskates in search of the best deal they are, they'd have made Apple the only computer and Windows would have never succeeded DOS. That didn't happen and DBS isn't killing cable with values with true longevity either.

    I really wish DBS could do better and be a viable competition. But as long as the industry is in an unrealistic reflexive mode of "cable sucks because we say so" then it will continue to have major problems. They need a killer app and they aren't anywhere near it. Sad, considering you can't take cable on the road to grandma's to keep the kids from asking, "are we there yet?" and there are sooo many SUVs and minivans with LCD screens on the road these days. You'd figure the DBS industry would be smart enough to notice and go after that market in force already.

    Maybe they should before cable goes to make subsets of programming packages availible through terrestrial wireless and cuts them off before they can become entrenched.

 

[BobMurdoch]

I disagree about the cost disadvantages. Cable has had to replace MILLIONS of feet of cable for the current digital upgrade. This has cost the cable companies BILLIONS to accomplish.

Given Moore's Law and the inevitable appetite for bigger and fatter pipes to carry bandwidth, look for cable to be in a fix AGAIN in a decade or so when they have to upgrade again. Given the fact that the majority of people are just happy to sit on their analog cable as long as they can, look for cable rates to continue to explode as they pay for these perpetual infrastructure upgrades. They pay for the cable, the labor, and the initial investment of the cable box (although most do the equivalent of a lease by charging a monthly fee for it)

Satellite, in contrast, does spend Millions NOT Billions to loft new satellites into orbit once a year. Other than R & D, Programming costs, and administrative expenses, the bulk of the costs are paid by the consumer himself. We buy the receivers, and pay to run the wiring in our homes when we want to upgrade. Yes, there are exceptions such as discounted initial hookups ($99 install, etc.), and occasional outlays like free Dish 500 upgrades or side satellite dishes, but it is no where near the level of cost that the cable company outlays. Plus there is regular maintenance due to storms that damage the cable wires on phone poles. The ONLY storm potential for Satellite is a solar eruption potentially damaging their satellite.

In my mind, the satellite paradigm is NOT in danger of extinction. The only real threat I perceive is the addition of HDTV channels in local markets, but the new 921 receiver will allow OTA reception of a perfect digital picture AND will provide guide data to enable PVR functionality for the main broadcast networks.

Because of this I think that the rumors of Satellite's death are greatly exaggerated.

In 1999, the cable industry predicted that DBS would begin a quick descent in market share once digital cable came online in the bulk of their systems. Well, surprise! DBS is continuing to grow. And Digital Cable's churn is shockingly high as people ditch the extra $10 it costs to get back their old analog channels. Some have fought this by forcing HBO onto their digital tier to MAKE consumers feel that they have to switch, but a majority of the cable lemmings continue to ignore digital cable for the cheaper analog selection of channels.

As far as a "killer app" goes, I would argue that PVRs are that killer app. I challenge anyone to compare my 721's EXACT duplicate of the show that was transmitted, vs. the compressed VHS like image that the standalone Tivo's offer (which is currently the only way to integrate a PVR into the cable user's household for most people). Cable keeps trumpeting their VOD capability as being the DBS killer, but I could care less. I buy most of my movies on DVD and those movies that I don't feel like shelling out $20 for, I catch on HBO/Showtime/Starz 6 months later.

Unfortuantely, the only thing that DBS has done wrong in my mind is fail to get the word out on what useful devices PVRs really are. Start running commercials showing people NOT running home to catch their favorite TV shows. Show them gathering movies that are on at 3AM to watch when it is convenient. Show how the sound quality of the recording is EQUAL to the live broadcast with full discrete surround sound. Start selling the things at Walmart/Costco/Sam's Place, etc. so that the low end buyer can use them as well and watch them take off. Watching a person discover a PVR, is like watching someone who has had fuzzy vision his whole life get glasses. They can't believe that they ever did things the old way.

[dlsnyder]

How about a mobile PVR? Have the hard drive in the vehicle wirelessly connected to a receiver in the home. Whatever is selected on the menu records in the vehicle instead of or in addition to recording in the home. Then those recordings are available for watching in the vehicle. I know my kids would love to have something like that on long trips - load it up with episodes of "Sponge Bob" a few days beforehand.

Arguably you could do this with either platform, but if DBS came out with it first it could help them maintain their slight technological lead. It should also be less expensive than those mobile satellite receiving antennas.

[gcutler]

Even though they voted, is it within their jurisdiction to enforce such things? And what are the chances it could be struck down if brought to court???

[James_F]

Well that is what you get by being a Monopoly. I'm guessing NJ could pull their license if Cablevision doesn't comply right?

[Brett]

I think pressure would come by region.

Example city of Edison could first put pressure on Cablevision, then other regions of NJ can do the same:
link (http://www.thnt.com/thnt/story/0,21282,687317,00.html?sec=main&sub=centraljersey)

map (http://www.cablenj.org/njcta_images/map11X17.pdf)

Otherwise, I dont know if the NJ bill would be held constitutional as it violates the first amendment right for Cablevision. Anyways, I think Cablevision knows they will have to strike a deal sometime, but they are just playing it out as long as possible.

[raj2001]

This is just to add to the many screwed up and totally nonsensical laws existing in the Garden State.

[raj2001]

Originally posted by James_F
Well that is what you get by being a Monopoly. I'm guessing NJ could pull their license if Cablevision doesn't comply right?

Maybe they could serve my area instead, I've been dying to get Optimum Online :D